Alive and Living (In That Order)
by copyallcatsandacrobats
Summary: During a zombie apocalypse, Lassiter struggles to get himself and a traumatized Shawn Spencer to safety. Initially concerned only with survival, Lassiter discovers that there's still something worth hoping for, worth caring for. (Eventual Shawn/Lassie.)
1. Chapter 1

_after all of the noise, you are like a stone.  
_

* * *

.

He came back from his scope of the perimeter with nothing new to report. That was probably good, but when it came to situations like this, it seemed like a bastardization of the word to stay it aloud, to even think it. It could definitely be worse, there was that much. The house had not been breached, which was a little surprising—for the first night, the big window in the living room was unprotected except for a comforter with Garfield the Cat on it, but as soon as the turmoil outside had quieted, Lassiter had managed to empty two bookcases in the living room to lift and slide them in front of the glass. He had tucked blankets and sheets he found in the bedrooms and the linen closet around the curtain rods of the rest of the windows on the first level, and hopefully they would continue to be left alone.

That didn't seem like it was going to be a problem. Lassiter stood in the doorway of what looked like it had once been an upstairs office and studied Spencer; he was still sitting on the sofa he slept on (if you could call dozing and then startling awake with constant nightmares sleeping—not that Lassiter blamed him, not really, not after what he'd seen), staring at a blank expanse of wall. His shoulders were slumped and his neck bent, as if his head was too heavy to lift all of the way, and he hadn't said a single word since Lassiter had dragged him into this house, up the stairs, and into this room. That had been almost a week ago. He wasn't entirely unresponsive—he would shake his head if Lassiter asked him if he was hungry, but he would eat if Lassiter told him to. He would also get up and sit in the hall with a gun, taking watch if Lassiter had to sleep, although he wouldn't approach the windows. He seemed to like this room because it didn't have any; while Lassiter also liked that—it made it the most secure room on the whole floor—he didn't like not being able to see if anything was happening outside.

Activity had been drastically dropping since the first week of upheaval; a week of hell, of living nightmares as the dead rose up again and walked, killed, ate. It happened so fast that there wasn't time for anything but survival for the strong and panic for the weak—life for the strong and death for the weak. Carlton Lassiter was strong. He'd been preparing for the end of the world for years, for almost every contingent imaginable. Let those who had laughed at him in years past chortle _now_ , while he was moderately safe, under shelter, with a dozen handguns, two rifles with scopes, a shotgun, half a dozen stun grenades, and all the carefully-packed ammo he could carry. While the masses were panicking and screaming and running aimlessly, he was calmly retrieving his stores and loading the secret compartments he'd had installed in his car. If he was prudent and cautious, he should be able to defend himself against a small army.

He hadn't counted on company, though.

"Spencer," he said softly. He waited, and after a moment, Spencer turned his head very slightly toward the doorway, indicating that he was listening, but his eyes stayed fixed on the wall. Lassiter pressed his lips together briefly, but he went on. "It's been twenty-four hours and I haven't seen or heard a single thing from out there. I highly doubt that there _isn't_ anything—or anyone—there, but it's time enough. I'm going to go out."

Now he got a reaction—for the first time since they'd come here, Spencer looked at him, his eyes huge and frightened. Lassiter came into the room slowly, putting his Smith & Wesson 629 into his hip holster so that his hands were free and non-threatening, not that Spencer had anything to fear from _him_. He took the Glock 17 from the left side of his shoulder holster and held it out, not breaking the first eye-contact Spencer was giving him since Lassiter had unwound his fingers from his dead friend's shirtsleeve and hauled him back to his feet.

"Take it," he said. "And don't blast me with it when I come back. It's a supply run, Spencer—I'm coming back. Okay?"

Nothing. Spencer just looked at him, his eyes huge and glassy and shadowed.

"Do you want to come with me?" Lassiter asked him in a low voice. "It's pretty quiet out there, but we could easily run into..." He trailed off; Spencer was shaking his head fast, moving back so that he was pressed against the cushion of the sofa. "Okay," Lassiter told him. "I'm going then. Take this. I'll be back soon."

He held the gun out again, and when Spencer still didn't move, Lassiter gently picked up his hand and put the Glock into it. Spencer allowed it, but he still looked so terrified that Lassiter started to feel uneasy about leaving him. What if he decided that he'd had enough and that he'd much rather join his friend and his father—and just about everyone else they knew—instead of pushing for survival? What if, while Lassiter was collecting some food stores for them, he heard a single gunshot? He would have to take the chance; he absolutely needed to get out there and see what, if anything, was going on beyond the house they were holed up in and the lawn attached to it. The street had lots of trees on it, and he couldn't see the end of the block from the windows, for one. He'd been outside, to the sidewalk, but his instincts had sent twangs up and down his spine and drove him back inside each time. It was too creepy outside; it was too deserted except for the corpses. And Spencer would need a weapon if the house was breached while Lassiter was out.

"I'll bring you something good if I can find anything," he told Spencer. "Wait here for me." He got up and left the room, left the house, before he could think to stop himself. His instincts also told him that the longer they stayed hidden, the harder it would be to leave.

Lassiter made it four blocks east without incident. The neighborhood was still quiet, and he saw no movement at all—no animals, no monsters. He was disquieted that there weren't any birds or squirrels, even though he'd hated the pests just weeks ago, and the silence seemed to build until he felt muffled, that even his footfalls on the concrete of a drugstore parking lot were more akin to walking on carpet in slippers. He wanted to make noise, just to make sure that noise was still a possibility, but that was dangerous—they'd learned that at once, to their sorrow. His brain tried to give him her voice again, and he shoved it away, drawing his pistol and edging along the wall to the broken glass of the drugstore's sliding door.

He got back to the house forty minutes later, running with a red plastic shopping basket in one hand and his gun in the other. He kept it out even as he closed and latched the back door, and then he set the basket on the table in the kitchen so that he could do a sweep of the first floor to make sure no one—nothing—had gotten in while he was gone. Every room was empty. He shook his head, trying to dispel the creepy feeling crawling up his spine from the way the world outside had been, and he got the basket of supplies to take upstairs.

"Spencer," he called quietly, stopping halfway up the stairs. "It's me. I'm back, and I'm fine. Do not fire."

Silence. The entire world, outside and in, seemed to be dead.

Lassiter stopped again halfway down the hall. "I'm coming in, Spencer," he said. "Do not fire."

 _And do not be dead._

Lassiter edged around the corner and stopped in the doorway. Spencer's huge eyes greeted him, along with the eye of the pistol pointed in his direction, and he was relieved. "Lower that and put the safety on," he directed, but not sharply. "Everything's fine." He paused, and then he held up the basket a little. "I brought you some things."

Something flickered on Spencer's face at that, and Lassiter was glad to see him understand and obey. He aimed the Glock at the floor and set the safety, and then he laid it down on the sofa next to him. Lassiter nodded and came into the room, putting his S&W 629 back on his left side before picking up the Glock and putting it back on his hip, and then he sat on the other edge of the sofa and put the basket between his feet. He'd been surprised to find so much of the store still there—but then, it had happened fast. That was surely a portion of Spencer's shock, along with the enormity of what he'd seen: one day life was normal, and within a couple of weeks, most of the world was dead, communications were down, and those that were only partly dead were munching on those they caught.

Lassiter dug to the bottom of the basket, pulling out a few things he'd located and chosen to bring back first: a bottle of Johnson's Baby Shampoo, a random comic book with characters he didn't recognize, a KitKat candy bar, a whoopee cushion. He hadn't been sure what sorts of things Spencer would like, although he could remember how often he'd sneered at both him and Guster for being children, and so he'd grabbed anything he could that he thought would remind the other man of being a child, of being happy. He had, of course, also gotten food and medicine, supplements and lighters and batteries and a couple of candles, but these things had seemed almost as important for some reason. He knew that they weren't, not really. But then, what was important now?

When Shawn's eyes fell on the small pile of things in Lassiter's hands, he looked up again and his eyes were not so dull, not so blank. He reached for the comic book, on which Lassiter had balanced everything else, and when he took the pile of things from an old life, Lassiter thought that the corners of his mouth turned up a little.

Lassiter went back to the drugstore the day after he'd first gone; he found a new backpack in the small sporting goods section and grabbed it at once to fill with whatever else he could find that they could use. He perused the aisles a bit longer to see what was available, collecting more medicines, first aid material, vitamins and protein bars, batteries, and reusable shopping bags for more supplies or better packing. He also found two water bottles that had filters in them, and, on the shelf below them, replacement filters.

As he went by the checkout counter, he saw a display case of beef jerky. He swung his pack off his back and set it in front of the register, pulling back the zipper and reaching for the jerky to stuff as much of it as he could inside... and then he saw the mess of blood on the floor. He froze with his hand extended, his eyes tracking the body drag marks to the end of the short aisle. It wasn't entirely dark in the building, but the only light came through the smashed glass of the front display windows, and he was glad he couldn't see the shape against what used to be a display of dog toys. Whatever—or whomever—it used to be, it wasn't whole anymore.

The blood wasn't completely fresh, but it wasn't old and dried. Lassiter listened as hard as he could, and he thought he could now discern shuffling sounds in between his racing heartbeat. They weren't the sounds of rats—even though there were a few bodies strewn around the store, Lassiter had yet to see signs of vermin, which was in itself odd—but of shoes. He had the pack on his back and the gun in his hand within three seconds, and he was walking as fast as he could for the doorway in five. It took him twice as long to get back to the house he and Spencer were staying in because it was difficult to simply walk on the sidewalks. He kept close to the houses on the street (but not too close), and he looked everywhere, his head whipping from side to side and over his shoulder. He still saw nothing outside, but the picture of what he'd seen in the drugstore wouldn't leave his mind.

They weren't safe here.

That was a joke, surely. 'Safe' was now a pipe dream on par with 'happy'.

On the second-floor room with Spencer, Lassiter laid out every supply they had. They'd come here with Lassiter's bags of guns and ammo and emergency rations, and now they had those plus the supplies and the backpack from the drug store, a small quantity of canned and dry goods from the pantry of the house, and three rolls of toilet paper. While he was inventorying and transferring the contents of the red shopping basket to the bags he'd picked up, Spencer left the room for the first time since they'd arrived and perused the bathroom and one of the bedrooms. He came back twenty minutes later, just as Lassiter had re-packed the backpack and bags, and held out a bottle of hydrocodone and a baggie with half a dozen marijuana joints.

Lassiter frowned and took them. "Where'd you find these?" he asked. Spencer shrugged and pointed down the hall. "Well, I guess the hydrocodone may be useful. I have an unusually high threshold for pain, did I ever tell you?" He sighed, thinking that Spencer might eventually need them if he became injured, and tossed the bottle in with the miniature pharmacy he'd collected and the first aid supplies in the red shopping bag (red for emergency). He made a face at the drugs. "These can just go into the toilet bowl as far as I'm concerned." Then he had a thought: barter. If they happened across other survivors, a trade for drugs might garner them food or ammunition or any number of other things. He shrugged and tucked the joints into an inside pocket of the backpack. "I suppose any supplies can be useful," he muttered. He looked up to tell Spencer that they were leaving, but he was no longer in the room. Lassiter was about to call for him, but he came back almost immediately with a Ninja Turtles pillow; Lassiter frowned at it, thinking that their focus ought to be on survival and not comfort, but now wasn't the time to nitpick about it. He held up the backpack. "Carry this, the red bag, and the green bag with the food, will you? We're leaving."

Spencer suddenly looked terrified and he took several steps back, stopping only when he hit the wall, now clutching the pillow to his stomach. Lassiter didn't have time for this and he was annoyed, but he could see that Spencer was really scared. He had been himself when he was in the drugstore earlier, and he realized now that his hurried arrival back at the house, along with his abrupt supply inventory and decision to leave, had tripped Spencer's instincts as well. He had spent a week and a half only in this room (except for short trips to the bathroom), and it made sense that he was afraid of what waited for them outside.

"Spencer," he said, quietly but firmly. "We need to go. Get those supplies—and stay with me—and you'll be fine. Come on." He barely stopped himself from snapping his fingers. "Now. Just stick close to me, and it'll be okay."

Spencer just looked at him for a long moment, and just when Lassiter's patience was about to snap, he seemed to set his jaw and nodded. He took one step forward, and then five more to the supplies; he hoisted the pack onto his back, tucked the pillow under one arm, lifted the shopping bags, and then he looked up, breathing quickly.

"Good," Lassiter said, and he slung the two gun bags over his own back, carrying the duffel bag of ammo with one hand; he wanted the other free to grab for his gun if necessary. He led the way downstairs, waiting for Spencer at the bottom, as he was walking very timidly. Lassiter tilted his head toward the living room and Spencer nodded, and although his head whipped around like he was trying to look in all directions at once, he was now right on Lassiter's heels.

Lassiter looked out of a corner of the window by nudging aside the comforter to check the street: clear. He went to the front door and looked back at Spencer. "Ready? The car is right out front, and the keys are still in it. It looks clear out there, but if it isn't: run for the car, dump everything in the back seat, get in, and we'll blow. If you don't have time to load in the supplies, drop them and get into the car yourself." He opened the front door and looked around again. Still seeing nothing, he glanced back at Spencer. "With me." Spencer nodded, his eyes huge, and Lassiter opened the screen door.

They ran across the lawn to the car and threw open the back doors; Lassiter swung his gear onto the seats and then stood up with one pistol in each hand, his back to the car and his gaze spanning the street while Spencer dropped the bags onto the floor and the backpack on top of them. Lassiter stayed where he was until he heard Spencer throw himself into the front passenger seat and the door slam, and then he stuck both guns into his holsters and got into the car himself. He started the ignition and pulled away from the curb, his adrenaline fizzling away now that they were on their way.

Lassiter hadn't gone the way of the drugstore intentionally; it was just the way the car was pointed, and he knew they could get out of this neighborhood going south. Half a block from Sanderson's Drug, he brought the car to a stop, and they stared. He didn't think it had been more than two hours at the most since he'd been inside the store, and now his mouth hung open and he couldn't make his lungs inflate with a new breath. There were six or seven zombies in the parking lot, one stumbling around the broken glass of the entrance, and two in the middle of the east-west street.

Spencer began to shake; he hunched his shoulders and wrapped his arms around the cartoon pillow in his lap, but his eyes still stared, and he didn't seem to be breathing, either. Lassiter let his foot off the brake and applied it to the gas hard, sending them sailing south at forty-five miles an hour. He pressed his lips together and scanned the road and both sides of the street as they continued, thinking that it would be just their luck to find a crowd—a horde—that had been coming their way and that they were now headed toward. The rest of the neighborhood seemed to be deserted and he relaxed slightly, breathing more easily, although his hands still gripped the steering wheel tightly.

Ten minutes later, Lassiter realized that Spencer was still shaking; when he glanced at him, he saw that he was staring back at him instead of looking around. Surely he had realized the implication of the scene at the drug store as well. "Hey," Lassiter said. "It's fine, all right? Nothing happened—I got back in time." Spencer started to shake his head and Lassiter turned his attention back to the road quickly, not wanting to have noticed that the other man looked as if he was about to cry. "It's going to be okay," he said after another minute of silence, but his voice was as flat as his conviction.

Spencer buried his face in his pillow and stayed that way.


	2. Chapter 2

_In this silence we will stay together or fall apart.  
_

* * *

.

Spencer had happened to have his iPod in his pocket when Santa Barbara turned into a nightmare, and he had it still. Lassiter had noticed him looking at it the same night that he went on his reconnaissance mission for supplies; he'd allowed one candle to burn in the room without windows, and while it couldn't have been enough light to read by, Spencer had the comic book open on one leg while he held the iPod and its earbuds in both hands, cradling it like a baby bird that had fallen from its nest. Lassiter watched him thinking about it while he sat on the floor near the door, and he wasn't surprised when, a few minutes later, Spencer seated the earbuds in his ears and turned the gadget on. Lassiter thought that was good—maybe it would relax him, take his mind and his memories away for a while. Help him sleep.

He was surprised, however, when Spencer began winding the cord up about five minutes later. Lassiter saw the screen of the iPod go dark, and then Spencer put it back into his pocket. He moved the comic book and the candy bar wrapper to the floor, glanced around, located Lassiter, and then he lay down on the sofa and closed his eyes. Lassiter watched him approvingly; there was no power anymore, no way to charge the gadget's battery. Spencer seemed to have listened to a single song and put it away, conserving its energy for another time, making it last as long as he could. Good. If it helped him, then by all means, Lassiter wanted him to use it. But it wouldn't last forever, and there was a lot they were both trying to make last as long as they could now.

.

They'd had half of a tank of gas when they'd gotten to the house they'd hidden inside; Lassiter drove out of that neighborhood and past the next, hoping to find somewhere that looked fortified enough yet would have supplies nearby. He often had to divert around streets peppered with deserted vehicles, some entwined with others or with street posts, and when he saw re-animated dead bodies upright and shambling, he turned them away at once. They were at just one quarter when he stopped, deciding on a brick house that had bars over the windows. He drove past it three times, on the lookout for monsters and supplies both, and when he saw two convenience stores within four blocks but not one zombie, he deemed it good. They needed to stop, to rest and regroup, and he liked the fire escape near one of the second floor windows as well.

He stopped the car and turned it off, and Spencer, who had been dozing, snapped bolt upright. "It's okay," Lassiter said. "I think I found a safe place for us, at least for a few nights." He unsnapped both sides of his holster but only took out one gun, knowing he needed to conserve his ammo above everything. Nearly everything. He looked at Spencer, whose eyes were darting around nervously. "I need to check out the perimeter and then do a sweep of the house. Wait here." He paused. "If they come up on you, drive away. There are enough supplies here to last you for a couple of weeks."

Spencer was already shaking his head quickly. He glanced over his shoulder again, and then he put a hand on the car door handle—reluctantly, it seemed—and looked back over.

Lassiter raised his eyebrows. "You're going to come with me?"

Spencer nodded slowly. It seemed clear that he didn't really want to go but that he liked the idea of being left alone less. The scene at the drugstore must have reminded him in no uncertain terms that Lassiter might not have come back from the trip and that Spencer wouldn't know exactly what had happened to him—at least, not until the zombies got that far down the street. Still, Lassiter didn't want him as a second shadow, jumping at every sound and giving him the responsibility of a civilian's life while he was trying to concentrate on his sweep.

He opened his mouth to say no, but suddenly Spencer's other hand snaked across the empty space between them and he grabbed on to Lassiter's wrist tightly, almost painfully. Lassiter scowled. "Calm down. I'll be right back," he said, trying to pull his arm back. Spencer loosened his grip a little, but he still held on, and his hand was still on the door handle. Lassiter looked around quickly, saw nothing, and jerked his head in an impatient nod. "Fine. But we need to go now—it's not safe to stay on the street. Stay with me."

Spencer nodded, his eyes wide and frightened, but he didn't let go of Lassiter's arm immediately. Once he had and they were creeping along the side of the house toward the back door, Lassiter realized that he could still feel the touch of his fingers.

They were able to determine that there were no living (or not-living) things in the yard or the house; they then quickly unloaded their supplies from the car and took them inside, up to the second floor. Spencer went with him while he checked out the house for supplies, and as they were stripping the king-sized bed in the master bedroom of blankets and sheets to set up sleeping areas in the largest room, Lassiter saw that Spencer's grip had left faint marks on his arm.

.

Spencer listened to one song a day on the iPod. Lassiter had no idea how long it would last like that, but it seemed to calm him enough, perhaps remind him of what once was. Once a day, before he slept, he got it out of his pocket and put the earbuds in for five or six minutes.

One night, after they'd spent almost the entire day in silence, Lassiter asked him, "What are you listening to?" He was curious, but he was also curious to see if Spencer would answer him. He still hadn't spoken, and he'd been increasingly listless since they'd holed up in the brick house.

Spencer raised his head a little, and then his eyes cut over to where Lassiter sat. He seemed to consider him for a moment, and then he took out one of the earbuds. Lassiter was about to repeat the question, thinking that he must have had the music already on and hadn't heard him, but then Spencer held that half of the pair out, offering. Lassiter hesitated; he wanted all of his senses aware at all times and music in even one ear would be distracting. But it would only be for a few minutes, and they'd heard nothing outside at all for the last four days. Lassiter had been to both convenience stores to pick up more supplies and had seen nothing, either.

He got up from his place near the door and went over to the wall, where Spencer had dragged a pile of blankets from one of the kids' bedrooms. He eased himself down and took the earbud, setting it inside the cup of his ear but not nesting it into the ear canal—he still wanted to be able to hear if anything did happen outside. Or downstairs. They were in what seemed to be a kids' playroom; Lassiter had chosen it because it was the room that led to fire escape he'd seen outside, but it was also convenient because the side door led to the bathroom, it was carpeted, and it was big enough for them both to set up sleeping areas and to keep all of their supplies handy.

Spencer looked at him to see if he was ready, and Lassiter nodded. The music was quiet—preserving the battery another way, Lassiter thought—but not bad. He didn't recognize it, but it was smooth and soothing and spoke of sleeping. When the song was over, Spencer immediately powered the iPod down, although he didn't take the earbud from his own ear or seem to want Lassiter's back. After a moment, Lassiter tugged on the cord, pulling the earbud out of his ear, and he dropped it into Spencer's lap. "Here," he said. "I don't know what that was, but you should take its advice and go to sleep."

Spencer didn't respond to that and Lassiter sighed. It was a shame how much like an empty shell the man next to him had become, his normally obnoxious and irrepressible personality nowhere to be seen. He thought that he probably wouldn't even be annoyed immediately if Spencer would start talking again, right up to the second or maybe even third stupid joke. He might even respond to being called "Lassie" again, although with the world in the chaotic state it was now in, the respect of titles and surnames weren't technically important anymore. Part of him vehemently denied that, saying that it was now more important than _ever_ , he was _Head Detective Lassiter_ and the city would _remember him..._ except that it wouldn't. Likely the only two people in the city who really knew who he was and what he had been were in this room. He was just Carlton now, no longer Detective Lassiter. Just a man trying to survive. To what end, he didn't yet know, but he _would_ survive, that much he did know. He would survive: he would beat them... until he didn't. He would make Spencer survive, too.

 _Shawn_ , he thought, looking at him and taking in the dark circles under his eyes, the stillness of his entire body, the way he didn't even seem to be breathing. Lassiter shook his head a little and, thinking that he was no shrinky-dink—and that Spencer was likely to be listless and mute until he was either ready to move on or until he shut down entirely—he decided to simply reiterate his prior direction and then stand watch for a few hours.

"Get some sleep, Shawn," he said softly. That caused a reaction: Spencer looked at him with his eyebrows raised. Lassiter nodded. "I'll be just over there, all right? You're safe."

Spencer just continued to look at him. Did he need something else? Lassiter thought he remembered an old therapist trying to spew some nonsense at him regarding physical touch and how most people took comfort in it; he'd ignored it at the time because he wasn't a touchy-feely gooey bundle of pansy-ass _feelings_... but Spencer was. Had been. He was constantly touching everyone around him: hanging on Guster or groping his head during psychic 'visions', using any excuse he could find or make up to touch O'Hara's hands or arms, many times unnecessarily touching Lassiter himself—including the time he'd plopped down into his lap for no discernible reason. The only time he had touched Spencer since the police department parking lot was to shove him into the last house and haul him by one arm up the stairs... and if anyone needed a bit of comfort right now, maybe it was Spencer.

Lassiter hesitated, and then he decided, _To hell with it. It's not like anyone else is around._ He reached forward and gently patted Spencer's leg twice, and then he got himself to his feet and walked away, putting his back to the open room as he stood near the window and gazed down at the dark, silent world outside. The moon was out and bright, casting pale light onto the street and the sidewalks, and he could see nothing moving. After a minute or so, he heard Spencer shift around a little, and then it was silent again. A few more minutes passed, and then Lassiter glanced back at him to check on him: he was lying down on the pile of blankets against the wall, the pillow he'd brought from the last house pulled protectively close to his chest and his eyes closed. Good. Lassiter turned back and regarded the street again.

.

Spencer had nightmares; bad ones. Not that nightmares were ever good, but from the first time Lassiter had heard him whimper, he knew he would never blame him for them. Spencer couldn't help how strong—or weak—he was, and he could hardly be faulted for what his mind threw at him when he was vulnerable. He had been struggling to compose himself while awake and aware, and since Lassiter could tell that he was making that effort, he had said nothing about the nightmares. With what they had both seen, what they had been through, they were expected. Lassiter could allow that seeing one's best friend since childhood torn from one's hands and eaten alive, screaming, in front of one was a different situation than some bleeding heart rookie turning into a pathetic, weeping mess because he'd shot and killed a man—a _criminal—_ for the first time. Shawn clearly dreamed about that—or similar terrible memories from the past few weeks—every time he fell asleep.

And... maybe he wasn't the only one, at that. Lassiter had hardly slept himself since he had said goodbye to his partner in the police department parking lot. He had pulled the trigger of his gun until everything was still, unbent Shawn's fingers from the remains of Gus's sleeve, and pulled him along until they got to his car.

Lassiter was sitting against the wall next to the window, just thinking that it was time for one of his periodic checks of the world outside—maybe even that he should go downstairs and stick his head out the door, just enough to listen for a few minutes—when Spencer jerked awake with a gasp, sitting up and then using his feet to push his back against the wall, his arms around his middle as he shook. He was breathing fast... and trying to hide the fact that he was crying. Lassiter pressed his lips together and stood up, turning his back to look out of the window and give him as much privacy as he could to get over it. After a few minutes, Spencer's breathing seemed to calm down and he quieted, although he hadn't moved from the wall or lay down again.

Lassiter's feet began to ache; he was tired of standing at this window. In fact, he was tired overall. It was the dead of night and it appeared that everything in the night was indeed dead (and knew it). It would be nice to rest, but he couldn't unless Spencer was willing to take the watch himself. He might be now, Lassiter thought, if whatever he'd dreamed had chased away his desire to sleep for a few hours.

He glanced back over his shoulder to check on him again, and he was not surprised to see that Spencer was now huddled against the wall with his arms wrapped around his bent knees, and that he was still shaking. He was going to shake himself apart if he wasn't able to calm down. Spencer looked up, and in the scant light from the moon outside Lassiter could see the desperation on his face. He opened his mouth but nothing came out, and then his shoulders slumped a little and he lowered his head again. Lassiter looked at him for a long moment, and then he realized that Spencer may have been trying to ask him for something. He'd either realized that he couldn't or he thought that it wouldn't do any good. What he wanted was obvious—to be comforted—and so too was the reason he still hadn't uttered a sound.

Lassiter frowned; it was not his job to soothe away the fright and helplessness of dreams or of reality. Spencer clearly knew that, which was why he hadn't asked. Instead, he stayed silent and held himself and waited for the terror to abate. It wouldn't, Lassiter knew that... and then he wondered if sitting with Spencer earlier had calmed him, made him feel safe enough to sleep for a little while. Well... hell. Not only were they the only ones here... they were the _only ones_ here. Lassiter was certain that he could make a go of survival on his own (and perhaps better without the responsibility of another person), but without him, Spencer would either be dead already or would die very soon. Spencer didn't deserve to die; he had been severely annoying just a few weeks ago, but he had also redeemed himself now and then: uncovering the culprit of a murder at the lodge, proving that Lassiter was not the culprit of a murder at the police station.

Because he hadn't asked, and because he was trying hard to deal with the enormity of the shock and devastation that he'd been through on his own, Lassiter decided to help him. A little. He could at least sit with him until he could sleep again. Lassiter slowly walked over to him, and when Spencer's eyes darted up and met his own, he sat down on the carpet against the wall next to him. Spencer stared at him and Lassiter pointed to the floor.

"Lie down and go to sleep," he said. "You're fine. I'm right here." Spencer continued to look at him and Lassiter nodded. "Go ahead. I'll stay here until you can fall back asleep." He paused. "If you want. Or you can take watch and I'll sleep, or I can keep standing guard over there and give you your space."

Spencer blinked; then he shook his head, loosening his arms from around his knees and slowly easing himself back down on the floor. He didn't stretch out—he kept himself curled up, and as he settled down and became still, the crown of his head touched Lassiter's thigh. He looked down and realized that this was deliberate, and when Shawn shifted slightly, pressing his head against him a little more firmly, Lassiter leaned back against the wall, his arms folded across his chest, and he let his head fall back until it rested against the wall. Spencer needed a physical touch to remind himself that someone was there with him so that he could sleep? Fine. At least he could sleep.

.

" _Carlton," she says, her voice tight and her face pale. There's sweat on her brow and her eyes are too bright and hard, like bits of a clear blue sky gone vengeful, ready to attack. "Did you hear me?"_

" _No," he says. Not in answer to her question, but to her order. No. No._

" _Yes," she counters, and in the cacophony of the small war on sane life that roars around them, he hears what she says next although it's barely more than a whisper, words escaping on her exhale that are soft and terrible. "It's too late... and I won't be like that."_

 _O'Hara's golden hair is no longer in her small, professional bun—and it is no longer golden, not entirely. Streaks of red from the bite wound on her shoulder paint it, pool around it, and although there's perfectly mundane sunshine causing bright glints in the stray strands that frame her face, it seems that all other color has drained out of the world and all he can see is black and white and grey and her. She's pale and fading but the thing that had attached itself to her as she came out of the building has infected her with darkness, and really, there's no grey area here. Lassiter grips his gun in one hand and her small, thin hand in the other, and as he prepares to do this final thing for her, as he gently nestles the barrel against her temple, he says the two words he never wanted to pass his lips, never in such finality._

" _Goodbye, Juliet."_

 _She closes her eyes. He squeezes her hand. He squeezes his hand. She will never open her eyes again._

 _._

Lassiter's eyes flew open and he sat up straight, his heart caught in his throat and his chest locked up because something had stolen all of the air from the room. He looked around and saw nothing at all—it was pitch black except for the moonlight that came through a window, and it took a few disorientating seconds before he caught his bearings and forced them back into place.

Something moved next to him. A hand on his leg.

Lassiter had a gun in his hand. The weight of it was natural and right, unlike everything that had happened in the last few weeks. For one second he almost raised it, and then he remembered that Spencer had gone to sleep on the floor next to him. Shawn, that was all. He was all Lassiter had now.

He let his hand relax and lower the weapon to the floor, and as he laid it on the carpet, Spencer's hand moved from his leg to his arm, down his forearm to his hand. Lassiter stilled, not sure what was happening, and then Spencer's fingers entwined with his own, holding firmly but not painfully, not panicky like he had before. It was dark, and silent, and as he sat against the wall Lassiter calmed down, at last succeeding in shoving away his own worst memories.

It began to get light after a while, and Lassiter realized that he could see the room, he could see Spencer; he was lying on his back, his eyes open and calm as he gazed up at the ceiling, one arm raised up over his head so that he could hold Lassiter's hand. When Spencer's eyes flicked up to him and he realized Lassiter was looking at him, his solemn face didn't change. He gave Lassiter's hand a deliberate squeeze, perhaps proving that he could give comfort as well as receive.

At dawn during the end of the world, Lassiter looked at the only person who had made it with him, and after a moment, he gave a squeeze back.

* * *

.

 _Note: The song that Shawn plays on his iPod is "WWOZ" by Better Than Ezra. If you want to hear what it sounds like, YouTube has a couple of song videos._


	3. Chapter 3

_stay close to me; letting go could be forever.  
_

* * *

.

On the fifth day after they'd arrived at the brick house, Lassiter spied with his little eye a monster in the backyard.

He wasn't very surprised—in fact, if anything, he was a little surprised it had taken almost a week for something to show up. It was the first time he'd seen anything moving (he couldn't exactly say _living_ ), even when he'd gone a few blocks in different directions to the convenience stores for supplies. He'd done a check of the perimeter several times a day, not only because there was nothing else to do, but because he could feel tension building inside of him. He didn't like that it was so quiet—Spencer still wasn't talking, and there wasn't much to say anyway—that everything was so still. It was unnatural and it wasn't real. He'd seen reality and knew it would chase him—them—no matter where they went.

He stood several paces back from the kitchen door of the brick house, not wanting the thing to see him before he was ready for it to. He'd come down for the first sweep of the day while Spencer was still asleep, having had to carefully extract his hand from Spencer's grip so that he wouldn't wake up, and he needed a minute to think before he made a plan of attack. He didn't want to use his gun on it in case the report of the shot drew more attention to them, but firearms were all he'd brought for weapons. He didn't want to take his eye off the zombie stumbling around, but he badly wanted to dispatch it for good and thought he'd seen something in the downstairs hall closet that could be very useful.

A light jingling came from the backyard as the zombie fetched up against the chain link fence, tried to continue walking, and bounced back like a toy robot walking against a wall until someone turned it around. It tripped over a large plastic car on the grass—the sort of thing a toddler might ride on—and Lassiter turned on his heel, striding to the closet and reaching in for the baseball bat. It was a good one—not aluminum, but heavy wood. Lassiter had never been much of a sports fan, but he was up now.

He stepped closer to the door and peered around as best as he could, seeing nothing unexpected. The zombie had managed to get to its feet and was just standing on the lawn now, either just looking around or switched off with nothing to stimulate it. Lassiter unlocked the door and turned the knob silently, opening the door slowly enough that the sudden movement wouldn't draw its attention. He stuck his head between the entrance door and the screen door and listened: nothing. Carefully, he pushed the screen door open and stood in the doorway, one hand gripping the bat and the other unsnapping the left side of his holster. Just in case.

The zombie turned its head toward the road, its back now to the house, and Lassiter moved toward it fast, the heft of the bat solid and good in his hands. His eyes darted around once to check the situation once more and he still saw nothing. He was halfway to the thing that used to be a person when it heard his feet and started to turn, but that was more than enough time for Lassiter: he swung the bat up fast and brought it down in a whoosh directly across the thing's face. It made a heavy _crack_ , one that he felt in his wrists and all the way up to his shoulders. The zombie stumbled backwards, but it didn't fall down—instead, it made a slobbery growling sound and, with its head turned a quarter of the way around and gore streaking its face, it raised its hands and came for him.

It was faster than he'd been expecting, and he only just managed to get the bat up before its hands grazed him. He shoved it away as hard as he could with one arm, grunting with the effort and cursing himself for seeing it shuffle in a daze and not remembering how they _changed_ when they were attacking. It came at him again and he swung again, missing its neck and getting it across the chest. It was making disgusting grunting sounds of its own as it lunged again, this time colliding with his chest and scrabbling with its hands to grab him.

If he hadn't hit it with such a good lick the first time, turning its mouth into a sideways bloody hole, it would have been a lot closer. Lassiter leaned his head back as he shoved it away again, this time getting the bat up as fast as he could and just swinging as it lunged for him. _Crack_ into its face again—what face?—and its arms flailed as it almost lost its balance. Lassiter got the bat up over his head, and this time his aim was true: the bat slammed down directly on top of the zombie's ruined head, and it went to its knees. He gritted his teeth and brought the bat down again. Again. Now it wasn't so much _crack_ as _fwump_ and then _thuck_ as the Slugger sloshed into bone and blood and brains.

Lassiter stopped, panting hard and taking a step back. He turned on the spot once, wildly checking the rest of the yard and the street to see what else was coming. The sun was bright and there was sweat in his eyes, and he almost thought he saw a crowd of them before he blinked and they were gone. The world was empty again, silent. He looked up at the window to the room where he and Spencer had been sleeping and saw nothing: good. Better if he didn't know about—

Lassiter turned back to the house and paused when he saw Spencer standing in the kitchen doorway with the screen door thrown open, his eyes huge and his hands up near the level of his shoulders, as if he was trying to fend something off. Lassiter looked around again, saw nothing still, and let out a last huge breath, willing his heart to slow down now, before heading for the back door, dragging the bat behind him. He didn't want to bring it into the house, considering the coating of slime it now bore, but he knew they might need it again. Anything could happen. Anything almost had.

"Move," he told Spencer, who only stared at him as he came up the porch steps. "Get back inside. I took care of it."

Spencer took a few steps back and Lassiter re-entered the house, leaning the bat against the wall next to the door as he closed and bolted it. He saw then that there was a spatter of gore on one of his sleeves, and he frowned at it. Disgusting. Hopefully the man of this house had left something in the closet he could appropriate. Lassiter tugged the sleeve away from his skin and looked up, thinking of the sink of water in the upstairs bathroom they had managed to draw before the pipes went dry, and then his thoughts broke off as he saw the look on Spencer's face as his eyes tracked the movement of Lassiter's arm, the blood.

"It's not mine," he said firmly. "Spencer, look at me." He tried to wait until the other man's gaze traveled up to his face, but it didn't—Spencer stared at his arm and his mouth worked as if he was trying to draw air and couldn't. Lassiter snapped his fingers briskly. "Spencer. _Shawn_." That one worked, and when Lassiter realized how terrified he was, he tried to picture what the altercation in the yard might have looked like from here, how he might not be able to be sure. "It didn't get me," he reiterated. "It was close, yes, but I knocked it back in time. I'm fine and it's dead—really, actually dead this time."

He set his jaw, remembering how angry he had felt when he saw how near to the house it was; he'd been outraged that it dare trespass on the dwelling he'd claimed as safe for them. That it had tripped over a child's toy, a child that was no longer here and, if alive still, would never play with his car again.

"There was only one, so I just got rid of it so it wouldn't draw others. We're still safe here." He paused again and glanced out of the window, just to check. Nothing. "For now." He looked back at Spencer, and this time he was surprised to see a furious look on the other man's face. "What?" he said. "You'd rather it was still out there?" Spencer glared at the blood on his sleeve and then back into his face, and Lassiter almost rolled his eyes before managing to stop himself. "Fine, I'll show you." He wanted the disgusting thing off of his skin anyway. He unbuttoned the shirt and slid his arms out of it, throwing it on the floor and then standing in the middle of the kitchen in his undershirt, holding his bare arms out and turning them over. "See?" He turned them back again to show the unbroken skin of his forearms. "It didn't get me."

There was a long silence, and then Spencer's glare dissolved into terror again. Lassiter opened his mouth to tell him again that there were no more zombies around the house, that nothing was coming for them (yet), and then suddenly Spencer was right there in front of him, having nearly thrown himself across the room and into Lassiter's open arms. He held his arms out as they were, surprised and unsure, and then he felt Spencer shaking against him, pressing his face into his chest, holding on to him tightly and then, very gently, stroking his back.

 _Oh_ , he thought, understanding now the force behind Spencer's anger and fear. It had been too close. He sighed and, after a long moment in which Spencer did not let him go, Lassiter slowly wrapped his arms around him and held him.

.

They couldn't stay in the brick house forever, not once the zombies started to trickle in. One should have been the sign to move on, but Lassiter was reluctant to leave the fortification of brick and iron bars. He killed another zombie on the way back from one of the convenience stores, almost losing the back issue of MAD magazine that he'd tossed on top of his basket of energy and protein bars and canned soup. While Spencer smiled a little and read it, flipping pages slowly while sipping on a can of chicken noodle, Lassiter gazed out of the window down at the neighborhood and, in his head, inventoried the vehicles on the street.

He was loathe to leave his car, his home away from home for years, but it was nearly out of gas, and so far they had not come upon hoses or spare gas tanks, nor was he ready to spend time out in the open searching for them. He had tried the radio repeatedly as they'd driven, jumping from channel to channel, and hadn't been able to raise a response. That unnerved him so much that he deliberately didn't bring it to Spencer's attention—the police band reached miles and miles and miles, and to hear nothing and get no replies to his calls had far-reaching implications. He meant to keep trying ( _someone_ was sure to hear him or to call for help themselves), thinking that the National Guard, at least, would be mobilized and searching for survivors. As soon as he found a replacement, he would move the radio and keep at it.

It took two days and four more killed zombies—none of which he mentioned to Spencer, not when he was actually starting to sleep a little better (as long as Lassiter gave him his hand to hold onto, something he did but did not think about)—before he found it. One street and two blocks away from the brick house was a small car without smashed windows, and when Lassiter broke into and searched the house it was parked in front of, he easily found the keys on a hook near the back door. He turned the key to the accessory position and the gas gauge swung to just a shade to the side of F. It would get good mileage and the backseat and trunk were empty, ready to be filled with supplies. It was time to go.

When he told Spencer of his plans, he braced for a terrified reaction much like the first time he'd decided they were going to leave their shelter. But when Spencer nodded slowly and got to his feet, starting to help pack their gathered supplies into backpacks, bags and baskets, Lassiter realized he had waited far too long. Even Spencer was feeling it. They packed quickly, bringing everything downstairs and to the front hallway so that they'd be ready to load in and go.

"I'll be right back," he told Spencer. The plan was for Lassiter to sneak back to the car, which he hadn't wanted to start until they were ready to go, and to drive it to the house as fast as he could. They would load their things, Spencer would stand watch while Lassiter applied the screwdriver he'd found in a kitchen drawer to the police radio in the first car, removing it as quickly as possible, and they would be gone, hopefully before anything that heard the engine managed to locate its position. Spencer bit his lip and looked worriedly outside, where the street was still—for now—deserted. Lassiter handed him a gun, checked the load on his S&W 629, and slipped out of the door.

He'd left the keys in the ignition, and the car started up as soon as he slid onto the seat and turned them. He shoved his gun back into his holster and put it into gear, his eyes everywhere as he drove. He was paused at a stop sign, his foot firmly on the brake and his gaze raking the streets and lawns in every direction, when he remembered that, in the event of a zombie apocalypse, the rules of the road no longer applied. What were minor traffic violations compared to beating in the head of what had once been a human being in a suburban backyard? Lassiter snorted and then, because he had never done it—not once in his entire life—he unbuckled his seat belt and drove down a residential street at forty miles an hour.

There was another zombie on the sidewalk three houses down from the brick house. Lassiter pulled up to the curb, remembered his previous revelation, and drove over the walk and onto the lawn, stopping as close to the bottom of the steps as he could and popping the trunk open. Spencer opened the screen door and stuck his head out, a laundry basket of food in his hands, and Lassiter nodded to him as he got out of the front seat, bringing with him the bat he'd set on the passenger side floor with the handle resting against the center console.

"Back seat," he said, keeping his voice firm and calm. Spencer hadn't seen it yet—he was diving down the steps and reaching for the handle of the car's back door—and with luck he wouldn't until Lassiter met it halfway and took it down. "Keep loading," he said. "I'm on watch."

The zombie had definitely seen them now and was stumbling towards them, its hands reached out as if to grab, but it was dragging what seemed to be a broken ankle. Lassiter waited until Spencer had shoved the basket of food onto the seat and turned back to the house for more, and then he raised the bat, setting it up on his shoulder, and walked toward it. It didn't have a chance. Lassiter refused to feel guilty for the surge of pleasure he got from sending it to hell, where it belonged; it was a brave new world, and he was going to take as many of them down as he had to, as many as he could, before anything managed to take him—or Spencer—down. He walked quickly back to the car, his head held high and his gaze sweeping the street again, and when he saw that Spencer was watching him—watching but still carrying two large canvas bags filled with more food and various other small supplies—he gave him an approving nod.

With Lassiter's help, they had the car loaded in less than five minutes. Spencer stood in the open passenger-side door of the new car, the Glock in both of his hands and his head twitching in all directions, while Lassiter pried the radio out of his car as quickly as he could. It wasn't a pretty job, but he thought he hadn't caused any damage to it; he planned to see if Spencer could install it while they drove on (if he calmed down enough—Spencer had, in the past, displayed surprising knowledge and abilities). Lassiter didn't know where they were going yet—just _away_ for now would do—but he was starting to think of a few ideas; starting to think of a future farther away than simply _tomorrow, if we're still alive._

.

He expected the highways to be bad, so they took back roads. After almost an hour of seeing no wildlife, they pulled over so that Lassiter could shut the car off and stand guard while Spencer hacked at the CD player in the dashboard, ripping it out to make room for the police radio. He did something with the wires and suddenly there was sound—just static, which was disappointing. Lassiter got back into the driver's seat and reached for the radio, but then his hand slowed as he saw a smear of blood on the center console. He paused, his eyes tracking drops of blood to the screwdriver on the floor, the tip of which was dark red. He looked quickly at Spencer and saw that he was holding a paper napkin (likely from a small supply in the glove box, which was hanging open), to his left hand—in his hurry to install the radio, he had apparently inadvertently stabbed himself. Spencer had been looking out of the window, his neck craning to make certain of their surroundings, but when they failed to move forward he glanced back at Lassiter quizzically.

"In a minute," Lassiter snapped, and he leaned toward the center of the car as he reached behind his seat for the first aid supplies he had deliberately stashed within his grasp. "What did you do that for? There's nothing tracking us right now and I was standing watch. Do you _want_ an infection?" he demanded as he set a gauze roll, medical tape, and a bottle of isopropyl alcohol in his lap. "Give me your hand. Stop that," he continued harshly when Spencer shrank from him and looked around again anxiously. "The sooner you get disinfected, the sooner we continue on."

Spencer relented, but his arm jerked when Lassiter applied the gauze pad, soaked in alcohol, to the raw dig in his flesh made by the hasty jab of the screwdriver. Lassiter held onto his wrist tightly, swabbing the wound until he was satisfied that it was clean, and then he laid over the broken skin a fresh square of gauze and taped it down firmly. He let Spencer have his arm back, tossed the used gauze out of the window, and returned the supplies to the basket on the floor behind his seat. He started the car and accelerated quickly, not looking at his passenger out of irritation—foolishness like that could get them in a heap of trouble, as minor injuries could turn to worse with the lack of medical care available. And he had been _guarding_ them—did Spencer not trust him to keep them safe?

They drove for hours, sometimes carefully maneuvering off the pavement and onto the shoulder or even into a ditch to get around abandoned vehicles. Lassiter wanted to stop and check them for any more supplies they could use, but Spencer's wild gaze all around them reminded him of how open they were now, and he pressed on. They needed to find shelter now because, even in the car, they were outside.

They found what appeared to be the sort of small store they called a mom & pop shop when he was a kid. He didn't know if that was still the term, and then he remembered that it didn't matter now. It was strange how the end of the world constantly came back to smack a person in the face in the smallest ways; after a while, one came to expect and even start to become acclimated to the big ways. As he pulled the car around the back of the empty parking lot, Lassiter wondered if he would wake up in the morning and reach for the light switch. The power had been off for weeks now, but he had done it just that morning as he went into the upstairs bathroom of the brick house. Well, it was possible this little store would have a generator. He didn't see one, but there was a shed he could investigate after they got inside and had something to eat.

Spencer was asleep; the quietness and the motion of the ride had him dozing within half an hour after Lassiter had bandaged his hand, and Lassiter had let him. Now he needed to do a sweep of the shop if they were going to spend the night here, and he needed Spencer awake and alert to cover him. He put the car into park and turned it off, leaving the keys in the ignition, and unsnapped the left side of his holster. "Spencer," he said softly. "Wake up."

He jerked awake at once, his eyes huge and startled, blinking and trying to look in all directions at once. Lassiter held a hand up in front of him and Spencer grabbed for it, his grip tight, but he was calming down a little. Lassiter gently pulled his hand back and gestured toward the shop. "It looks okay," he said. "I'm going to sweep it; I'll be right back, and then I think we can stay here tonight."

It turned out that the glass of the entrance door was broken, which meant the store would provide them with no safety after all. "Damn," he muttered. He edged a little closer, trying to see inside—maybe there were more supplies he could quickly grab before they took off again—and then he saw that the shelves were knocked over and that there were large, familiar shapes on the ground. Behind the counter. Moving toward him. He turned and sprinted back to the car. As he came around the corner, he saw Spencer's anxious face go back to terrified, and he leaned over the middle console fast. The engine turned over just as Lassiter reached the door, and he threw himself behind the wheel, swinging the door closed after him and slamming his foot on the gas. As they screeched back onto the road, he saw two zombies in front of the shop and one halfway out of the broken door.

"Sorry," he said after a few minutes. "That one was no good. Next one." He glanced at Spencer, who stared at him with his lips pressed together. "Good move starting the car," he allowed. Spencer turned to stare blankly out of the window, and he didn't fall asleep again.

He wasn't sure where they were when they finally stopped; the car had only a quarter of a tank of gas left, which was the least amount he felt comfortable with, reminding himself that they needed to be able to make a quick getaway at literally any minute. He was tired and hungry, and he wanted to sleep, and, while the house looked deserted and there were no other houses or cars nearby, that didn't necessarily mean it was empty.

He looked at Spencer, who was also taking in the surroundings. "You want to come with?" he asked. "Or wait here?"

Spencer looked at him, and then he slowly put his hand on the door handle. Lassiter nodded, handed him the Glock from the right side of his holster, and they got out of the car. Spencer kept close to him, holding the pistol pointed at the ground in both hands, his gaze sweeping the road and the empty yard, the driveway, the garage. Lassiter turned his attention to the house, his revolver raised, and they made their way to the door.

The house was silent and dark. Judging from the emptiness of the driveway, Lassiter figured that the owners had fled, as most people had attempted to do, so he wasn't surprised. It was a small, one-story house, and it didn't take long to search the living room, a bathroom, a home office, one bedroom, and a kitchen. Judging by the state of the bedroom and the kitchen, the owners had tried to pack before they left; there were dresser drawers askew in the bedroom, one sleeve of a red sweater hanging out like the long tongue of a snake, and the cupboards were thrown open, mostly bare except for a few cans that had been knocked over. Still, Lassiter and Spencer had their own small store of supplies, and as long as they didn't come upon any other uninvited guests, it would be good enough to stay in for one night.

The problem was that Spencer wouldn't sleep—or that he couldn't sleep, maybe. At least, not in the bedroom while Lassiter took watch in the living room, even though he tried to point out the fact that they didn't know when the next time they'd actually get to sleep on a mattress would be. Spencer had stayed on his heels from the moment they left the car, and although his face looked paler than ever in the scant light of the one candle Lassiter allowed on the coffee table, the circles under his eyes dark and his movements jerky as he startled when a tree rustled in the wind, he refused to go to sleep.

"Look," Lassiter said, his thin patience dented and beginning to crack. "I'm going to need to rest soon myself, and I can't if you're not able to take the watch—which you won't be alert enough for if you don't get your twenty winks. We swept the house perfectly well and we've been here for hours—there's no one and nothing here except us. You're safe. I'm going to be right out here and keeping watch of our surroundings, so get your ass in there and lie the hell down."

Spencer was sitting on the couch, his shoulders hunched and his arms wrapped around his middle. He had been staring at the floor while Lassiter tried hard not to snap at him, but when he stopped speaking, Spencer glanced at the dark, open doorway of the bedroom, looked back up at him, and shook his head.

"Fine—then I guess I'm going first." Lassiter shoved his Smith & Wesson back to its accustomed spot next to his heart and turned toward the bedroom. "Stand over there by that window, take a gander out of the corner of the drapes every few minutes, and come get me if you see anything." He was halfway across the living room when Spencer stood up quickly and walked toward him. Lassiter stopped, frowned, and gestured to the bedroom. "Are you going to go to sleep first or not?"

Spencer didn't move; he only looked at him.

Lassiter rolled his eyes and went into the bedroom. It was nearly pitch black, but he remembered what the room had looked like when they'd arrived, and he only slammed his foot into one of the sides of the dresser before he felt along it and located the bedside table and the bed itself. He sat down on it, feeling his entire body aching, and swung his legs up so that he was sitting against the headboard. Spencer had slept in the car and he hadn't been the one driving all day, hadn't been the one on such high alert for days. It was his damn turn to take the watch first.

A soft sound from the bedroom doorway made it obvious that he wasn't going to take it. Lassiter's eyes had fallen shut at some point since he'd sat down and leaned his head back, and now they popped open, his lips pressed together in annoyance. "Spencer, I swear," he muttered, and the footsteps stopped. There was silence for a moment or two, and just when Lassiter thought that he was going to have to get up after all and stand watch in _this_ room so Spencer would give up and at least one of them could get some sleep, the springs on the other side of the bed creaked and Spencer crawled over next to him. He settled down just as Lassiter was, sitting up against the headboard, and he was so close that their shoulders and thighs were touching.

Lassiter exhaled hard through his nose and prepared to hoist himself up, but then a small rectangle of white light flared and temporarily ruined his night vision. He squinted and put a hand up to block the iPod's display, and Spencer put an earbud against his palm and closed his fingers around it. Lassiter frowned and opened his hand. "Thanks," he said dryly, "but one of us needs to listen to what's going on outside. If you're ready to sleep, then I will, but stop wasting my time, all right?"

There was a beat, and then he sighed when he realized what he said. Time. Right.

"Okay, but the point stands," he said. "Just...fine, you listen to your song and go to sleep. I'll stay in here and watch until you fall asleep, all right? I am going to need to check the other windows, but I'll also keep checking on you. Will that work for you?" In the light from the iPod, he saw Spencer shake his head and put the other earbud into his own ear. He selected a song, hit pause, and then he looked at Lassiter and waited. Lassiter closed his eyes briefly and then he set his earbud in the edge of his ear where he knew he would barely hear the music. The song started, and he was right—it sounded small and vague, and he tried to focus on listening to the house, to anything else he might hear.

When it was over, he handed back his half of the earbud cord while Spencer powered down the device. He swung his legs back over the side of the bed and started to get up, but Spencer immediately grabbed for his arm and pulled him back. "What?" he hissed, turning back with one foot still on the ground and one leg back on the bed. "What now? I listened to the damn song with you, but in case you've forgotten, there could be a yardful of flesh-eaters out there, and I want to make sure we're not about to be breached."

Another beat of silence, Spencer's hand still tight on his wrist, and then Spencer moved, but not in the way Lassiter was expecting—not back, but forward. Forward into him, ducking his head under Lassiter's arm and then wrapping both arms around him, resting his head in the hollow of Lassiter's shoulder. Spencer curled into him and hugged him hard, and when Lassiter realized that _this_ , of all things, was his problem—they had slept right up against each other for most of the last week they spent at the brick house, Spencer holding on to his arm or his hand and Lassiter letting him—he sighed and let his arm fall so that it rested on Spencer's back for a moment.

"Okay, fine," he said flatly. "I can sit up and keep watch for a while if I can listen. But first..." He was in a very awkward position now, with the way his legs were bent and how his back was bowed with Spencer's body against him, and he tried to pull Spencer's arms off of him and set him back a little. Spencer buried his face against Lassiter's chest again, clearly not wanting to move, but when Lassiter pushed with a little more force, he went, dropping his arms and then just sitting there. Lassiter turned back away and stood up, brushing his sleeves off a little. He cleared his throat. "I'm going to have another look around and check outside," he said. "If you—" He stopped, unsure of what to say, and tried not to sigh impatiently. "If you need me to sleep, I'll come back, all right?" he said finally. "Just... wait here, and after I check the perimeter, I'll come back in here with you."

Spencer didn't seem to move, and of course he made no sound in response to that, so Lassiter made his way back through the bedroom and out into the living room. He blew out the candle and checked the windows facing each direction from the house, but it was so dark that he couldn't see much, even if there had been much to see. He carefully unbolted and opened the front door, leaning out far enough to listen. Nothing. They could have been the last people alive in the world.

Lassiter closed and locked the door, and then he stood there for a moment, uncertain. He knew that it wasn't really a great idea to not keep a strict watch... but it wasn't like he was going to sleep, and he had ears like a fox. Just for awhile—just until Spencer fell asleep—couldn't hurt. And maybe, although he didn't really want to admit it, it would help both of them. God knew the next time he would have someone to put his arms around, someone to make safe and keep safe; someone to hold like they were the only thing left that mattered.

He was back in the bedroom, leaning up against the headboard with Spencer halfway lying on him and asleep on his chest, when he realized that while one of his hands loosely held his gun—just in case they needed it, in case he had to protect them—his other hand had been gently stroking the back of Shawn's head. He stilled his hand and laid it flat on Shawn's back, and in his sleep, Shawn turned his face up into Lassiter's neck and sighed quietly. He had fallen asleep almost as soon as Lassiter had slid into the bed next to him and muttered, "Okay, c'mere"; Shawn's arms had gone around him again and he'd held onto him tightly, but he hadn't been shaking because he wasn't scared (or _as_ scared) with Lassiter next to him, holding him.

 _Shawn_ , Lassiter thought. His left hand slowly crept back up to the back of his head and stayed there while his right hand gripped his gun more firmly. Shawn would be safe to the end—he would see to it.


	4. Chapter 4

_what is part of myself to make you whole?_

* * *

They stayed in the ranch-style house until morning; at dawn, Lassiter's eyes popped open and he realized he'd been asleep, that no one was keeping watch, and that he did not like how open the property was. True, it would be easier to spot any hostile entities coming toward them, but if they happened to become surrounded, there was nowhere to escape. He missed the brick house with the iron bars, its fire escape, and the many houses of the neighborhood around them, but it hadn't been any safer there.

Spencer was still curled against him, still sleeping. "Spencer," he said softly. "Shawn. Wake up—I need to check the perimeter again, and then we need to get going."

Spencer's eyes opened and he sat up quickly, looking around and then remembering where they were. He nodded and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he got to his feet, and as Lassiter also stood up and put his gun back into his holster, he realized that Spencer must have slept deeply to have so much gunk accumulated in his eyelashes. He must not have had nightmares that woke him in the night. Lassiter hadn't either, but he attributed that to being so exhausted that his mind couldn't be bothered to torment him. He chose to view that as a good thing.

"Get the water bottle we brought in last night filled up, if you can," he directed. "I saw a well cap when we drove in, so their pipes might still have some in them. If you can't, don't worry about it—just see what else they left behind that we might be able to use. Check the bathroom for any first aid supplies or antibiotics." He paused. "And bath tissue."

Spencer nodded, and he got the gallon jug from the living room while Lassiter checked the yard, the road, and the garage. There was still nothing or no one around, but it didn't make him feel any better about staying where they were. He found an ax leaning against one inside wall of the garage and he grabbed it, thinking that it wasn't like he could use it to chop wood, exactly, but... who knew. It would be prudent to collect any weapons they could carry that wouldn't cause as much noise as his guns would. He put it in the back of the car and went back inside to check on Shawn.

He was surprised to find that he had a laundry basket of supplies sitting on the sofa, ready to go. Their water bottle, filled all the way to the top, was next to a large bottle of Germ-X, along with a shoebox filled with box of gauze pads and some hospital tape, a tube of Neosporin, a tube of hydrocortisone, bottles of amoxicillin, acetaminophen and ibuprofen, a large bottle of multivitamins, a toothbrush still the package, two tubes of toothpaste, and one-and-a-half rolls of tissue. Tucked around the shoebox were a couple of small towels, a box of kitchen matches, several loose AA batteries (Lassiter glanced up and saw two TV remotes and a wall clock on the coffee table, all with their backs off and their battery compartments empty, and he was a little impressed), and some candles with the wicks already blackened, likely snatched from a knick-knack-y display. He heard movement behind him and turned around fast, locating Shawn in the doorway to the bedroom with an armload of clothes. He dumped them on the sofa and Lassiter pawed through them quickly, finding shorts, socks, and one shirt that he thought would fit him well enough, as long as big in the gut and short on the arms didn't bother him.

They loaded the supplies and got back into the car, continuing the way they'd come. Lassiter kept his eye on the gas gauge, hoping that they'd find another vehicle that they could appropriate soon, and as he drove, he talked. It was too quiet—their entire lives were too quiet, and Spencer's refusal or inability to speak was so unlike him (or, at least, unlike the Spencer that had existed in the old world, the sane world) that Lassiter was starting to feel uneasy about it, although he shoved the thoughts away because Spencer was still responsive, more so now than a few days ago. He was definitely clingy and anxiety-ridden, but he had excuses—like what had happened the last time he'd spoken.

After he had tried again to raise responses to his radio calls and hadn't heard anything but static in return, he talked, and Spencer listened: he told him about spending time in Old Sonora, being accepted to the police academy, making detective. He started to talk about meeting Victoria, but that seemed distant and unimportant; it also seemed to bore Shawn, who turned away and gazed out of the window instead of focusing on Lassiter's face as he expounded on his life. He switched direction in the middle of a story about realizing that he loved her and started a new tale, one that began with thefts in a stereo store and ended with him trying to wrestle a shouting, writhing, handcuffed fake psychic into his car while the annoying little shit in question solved a crime from apparently nowhere.

He put the brakes on as they approached another gas station, his eyes sweeping the area for hostiles, and when he glanced right he saw that Shawn was smiling at him. Lassiter raised his eyebrows, and then he realized that it had been so long since he'd seen Shawn smiling that, although he looked like his old self, the look bordered on unfamiliar to him. He returned his attention to the station, which appeared to be deserted, and thought that he didn't like how soon he'd gotten used to the silent, terrified Spencer. That wasn't right. No matter what their lives were like now, or what they would eventually be, they each had the right to who they had been. If he wouldn't talk, Spencer needed to at least smile more, whenever it was possible.

.

They weren't moving along idly. Lassiter had a few ideas about where to go and what to do once they'd gotten there, but nothing was certain. For the next couple of weeks they traveled when they could and hunkered down when it seemed safe enough, a few days here, overnight there. Lassiter preferred neighborhoods with high-security homes, and by the time they'd acquired an SUV with a full spare gas can in the back, they'd upped their own personal supplies to include the things they collected from the homes of people who had fled in too much panic to equip themselves for survival. As they slowly made their way north, they added to their stores warm clothing, a few more pieces of weaponry, some more vitamins and medicines, and food, food, food.

Shawn still hadn't spoken, but every night that he curled up against Lassiter's side while Lassiter himself sat up and kept watch, listening to the quiet outside and Shawn's rhythmic breathing next to him, he didn't seem to have paralyzing nightmares each time he shut his eyes. He still had bad dreams, but if he awoke frightened, or if he started to shake, Lassiter would put an arm around him and he calmed. That was good; Lassiter hadn't voiced his conviction to protect him, but Shawn seemed to know anyway, to finally trust him.

One night, while Shawn slept and Lassiter's thoughts drifted that way, he realized that he felt a little strange about the intensity of Shawn's eyes as he looked at him sometimes, the way Shawn's only insistence about their continued companionship was that they stayed together at all times, that when one of them slept or rested, the other stayed close enough to touch. He looked down, where Shawn's face was pressed against his leg, and after a couple of moments he decided that the strangeness meant that he was glad. It was strange to be glad, and he never would have thought that he would be, not in all the times he'd imagined and planned his course of action for all kinds of end-of-the-world survival, but he wasn't alone, and that was good.

.

A week later, he finally got evidence that he and Spencer were not, in fact, the only humans left alive. He hadn't really believed that they were, but it had been long weeks of silence and of nothing but drifting and waiting. He'd come to the conclusion that the remaining human population must be very slim indeed, but that shouldn't mean that it was down to two. Still, they hadn't seen or heard any other living humans since the police station in Santa Barbara.

Lassiter had found them another (temporarily) safe place to stay, and this time he'd been rather pleased with himself: the local hardware store of a nameless small town in the webwork of back roads had concrete walls, few windows, and was loaded with both potential weapons and survival gear. There had even been half a shelf dedicated to Army MREs, which Lassiter had immediately swept into a plastic crate and stowed in the back of the SUV. The store room had a steel door with a deadbolt and no windows at all, and, in addition to Shawn seeming to feel safe there, Lassiter also felt he was safe enough so that he could leave him sleeping there and do a little exploring. His goals this time were maps and certain books, and he'd seen a road sign picturing a stick person holding a book with an arrow pointing the opposite direction from the hardware store. He eased himself out from under Shawn's arm, patted his head a couple of times, and scribbled, "GOING OUT BACK SOON —L" on the blank side of an ad circular.

He found the library easily; ignoring the split heads of a few bodies on the street and on the lawn, he ducked the broken glass of the door and held one hand on his Smith & Wesson while he stepped silently around, listening for company. If anything, he expected the distinct thumping shuffle of a zombie or zombies walking aimlessly around. What he did not expect was a low male voice and then a child's voice. He froze, listening, knowing that they were in the next room.

"Hurry up and take a couple," the man's voice said. "It's not safe if we're in one place very long. I don't like being inside where we can't see them coming."

"Okay, Daddy. Can I have these?"

"Sure. Grab that one there, too—I read that one when I was a kid, you'll like it."

Lassiter peered around the corner then and saw them: a man, twenty-five to thirty-five and a little boy about six or seven years old. The boy was squatted down next to an overturned shelf of what were probably children's books, and as he rifled through them, the man, who had a shotgun strapped to his back, stood near one of the windows and looked out onto the street.

The boy picked up a hefty volume and frowned, glancing up at his father. "Daddy, will you read me this if I pick it?"

The man started to turn toward the boy, but as he did his gaze swept around and he saw Lassiter in the doorway; in a second, the gun was off his back and in his hands while he took three long strides and stood in front of his son. "Who the hell are you and what do you want?" he demanded.

Lassiter bit back an order for him to lower his weapon; that was the cop part of him clamoring, and in this new world, anyone who had a gun was safer than anyone who didn't, and he no longer got to be legally in charge of every situation with civilians. "Nothing," he said, taking his hand off his holster. "I just heard voices and wanted to check them out. I am not a threat."

The man frowned, and then he slowly raised his shotgun so that the sight pointed at the ceiling. The kid had jumped to his feet when his father rushed to block him from sight, and now he curiously peered around his father's side. "We haven't seen anyone living in weeks," the man said.

"Neither have I, outside of my... companion." Lassiter paused, considering how much to tell this man that he didn't know, how much information to give regarding his personal status and how much he suspected—and dreaded—regarding the situation as a whole, and then he decided to let his past life come back on him just a little, because it was still who he was and although he might one day lose it entirely, that day hadn't yet come. "I'm Detective Carlton Lassiter, Santa Barbara PD," he said. "Are you two all right?"

"Fine. Well... as fine as we can be. I'm Dave Burnett and this is my son, Corey." The man eyed him, still suspicious but not hostile—he wasn't antagonistic, he was protective. "I don't suppose you made it out of Santa Barbara with some ID, Detective."

One corner of Lassiter's mouth curled up in a small smile; it was perhaps the last time he'd ever get to show his badge. He stepped into the room and pulled the badge off his belt loop, where he'd clipped it by habit, and took the ID card from his pocket. Dave Burnett took a couple of steps forward and gazed at them; he looked up at Lassiter as if to check the picture on the ID, and then he nodded. Lassiter was about to put it away when the little kid came up next to his father and his face lit up at the sight of the gold.

"Wow, a real police officer!" he said. "Some of you helped us when the monsters came. I wanted to be a police before the bad things happened." He held up his hands into finger guns, aimed at an imaginary perp, and adapted a small boy deep voice. "Stop right there with your hands up," he commanded. "You're ugly, and you eat cat food."

Lassiter snorted while Burnett ruffled his son's hair. "Why don't you look for a police book, kiddo?" he suggested. "We're gonna go in a few minutes."

"Can I still bring the one about the mouse on the motorcycle?"

"Sure."

The little boy went back to the pile of books and crouched down again while Burnett turned back to Lassiter and nodded toward the badge in his hand. "Don't suppose you'd be willing to make a trade for that?" he asked. "I don't know what we have that you might be interested in, but anything that could make him happy while we're dealing with this shit would be worth it. I know it can't be much use to you with the law enforcement system more or less disintegrated."

Lassiter looked down at his badge, several thoughts racing through his head. He couldn't give it up, it was his _identity_. Not the card with his picture on it, but the badge of the life he'd lived. On the other hand, this man was right: what was being a detective when it held no authority? Most of the world was apparently dead, and the few that had survived were carrying weapons and clawing desperately for survival. The badge would mean little to others they might meet. It couldn't hurt to see what they might have to trade, what might be useful to himself and Spencer.

"What are you offering?" he asked.

Burnett considered the question, likely mentally inventorying his own supplies and deciding what he would be willing to part with. "Can opener?" he suggested at last. "We have an extra."

"Got one." Lassiter and Shawn had two, in fact—Lassiter had instructed him to add the second when he'd spied it on the counter of the last home they'd stayed in, just in case the first crapped out. They had a lot of canned goods. It probably wouldn't be very difficult to find another one if they needed to.

Burnett took a few steps to his left and set his shotgun down on a table where children would once have sat to do homework or read about Mr. Toad or Frodo. He had a pack on his back that he took off and set down to rummage through, and then he frowned. "Well... we raided the drugstore two blocks away yesterday and got a few things, but most I don't think I can give up. We'll probably need the batteries and the first aid stuff. I did grab this." He pulled out a tangle of black cord and shrugged. "Not like the towers are working."

"What is it?"

"Phone charger," Burnett said. "Solar powered. It works, too—I wanted to try mine, just to see if something like 911 was working. It wasn't, but Corey got a couple of hours playing games on it. A few hours of Bejeweled is probably not worth your badge." He looked back into his pack and frowned again.

Lassiter stared at the charger, something telling him it was important, but nothing immediately defining the hunch. He thought of the boy playing games on an otherwise-defunct cell phone until its battery went dead, and then he thought of something else that would soon have a dead battery for good. "Will it work with an MP3 player?" he asked.

Burnett glanced up at him, surprised, and then he held up one end of the cord, which had several differently-shaped jacks. "Probably," he said. "I don't want to tell you yes and be wrong, but the package did say 'multi-functional' on it. You bring an iPod to the apocalypse party?"

"I didn't, my, uh... friend did." Something Burnett had just said resonated with him then, and he smiled a little. "I'll take it."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Lassiter looked down at the badge once more, and then he nodded and held it out. "Anything to make him happy, right?"

Burnett glanced at his son and then back to Lassiter, seeming to be a little confused. "Your friend?" he asked.

Lassiter shrugged. Burnett held out the charger and they made the exchange. As Burnett called to his son and then pinned the badge to the front of the beaming kid's shirt, Lassiter looked at the gadget for a moment and then stuck it in his pocket. He glanced up to wish them well and make his exit from the children's section of the library and to find what he'd come for, but he stopped when he saw that the other man was now considering him while the boy aimed his finger guns at a poster of Harry Potter.

"Boyfriend?" Burnett said.

Lassiter blinked. "What?"

"Your _friend_. Is that what you meant?" He shrugged then. "Just a vibe, I guess. I didn't think you were actually going to hand over your badge, but as soon as you thought the charger would work for something that would make _him_ happy, you did, so this guy must really mean something to you. Whatever, you know? There's not much left of our world, I guess, so hold on to what you have."

"I—I didn't—" Lassiter stopped then, realizing that he didn't have a way to finish. Shawn Spencer was not his _boyfriend_ , of all things, he was—he was—

Well, what pertinence did that have on the situation? He needed to find the maps and reference section, not define his life to this stranger. He didn't know this man and would probably never see him again, so it didn't matter what he thought.

"Keep the kid with you at all times and learn to like the indoors," he said shortly. "You don't want to be seeing them."

"Yeah." Burnett sighed. "Good luck, man."

Lassiter nodded and turned away. He was able to find the maps and books he needed, but was unable to concentrate on which ones he wanted to bring along; their capacity for travel with supplies was limited, after all. He shoved what he could into the pack he was carrying to take back to the hardware store, where he could go through them more thoroughly and leave behind what he didn't need when they left. He needed to get back and make sure the hardware store hadn't been breached—he needed to make sure Shawn was okay.

.

Boyfriend. _Ridiculous_.


	5. Chapter 5

_we'll make for the hills and be the first to see the sunrise.  
_

* * *

Shawn was still deeply asleep when Lassiter returned, and he was glad to see it—he was having fewer nightmares and sleeping longer, he was eating better. Although he was still too silent, he was no longer only the shocked husk of a man. Lassiter just needed to keep him engaged, keep him responding.

Keep him happy.

He carefully lifted the mp3 player from the backpack Shawn kept his most essential supplies in and carried it and the charger into the main area of the hardware store. He walked around and checked their perimeter—and the noise-making traps he'd set near all weak points of possible entrance—and then he sat on a stool behind a checkout counter and set the gadgets in a square of sunlight. He fiddled with the iPod and managed to turn it on, discovering that the battery bar was in the red, and then he tried the different jacks attached to the charger before clicking one home and switching it on.

For a few seconds nothing happened, and he was disappointed, realizing that he'd been looking forward to giving the iPod back to Shawn with a full battery. He had been rationing carefully, but without a charge he would soon have to leave it behind, and Lassiter wanted him to be able to use it as much as he wanted: to wind down from the stress they lived with, to escape. Then the screen of the iPod changed, an icon of a battery with its bar filling up appearing. Lassiter smiled in triumph and set it down in the sunlight to let it do its thing; in the meantime, he sat on the stool so that his back rested against the wall, crossed his arms over his chest, looked up at the ceiling, and let his focus drift away while he thought. He made plans and contingencies, cast others aside, and tried to look farther ahead instead of too closely examining the present.

.

When the back room of the hardware store opened slowly and Shawn poked his head out, Lassiter was still on the stool behind the checkout counter, a map unfolded in front of him and an ink pen in his hand. He had been making notes for possible routes, and when he heard the door he glanced up, meeting Shawn's anxious eyes so that he would know everything was all right. Shawn relaxed a little and came forward, looking around at the windows, and when Lassiter followed his gaze he saw that it was getting dark—he'd set a candle on the counter next to his map when the sun began to go down and hadn't noticed the natural light diminishing. He checked on the solar charger and realized that the iPod was now next to a bar of dark orange instead of the square of bright yellow, and its screen was off as there must not have been enough light for the charger to continue to power it. He poked at the button in the center of the wheel and the screen came on at once, bright and colorful—and with the battery indicator in the upper corner full and green.

He disconnected the mp3 player from the charger and held it out as Shawn walked up to the counter. "Here," he said. "I got this re-charged for you. Just don't make me listen to _Hungry Like The Wolf_ again, because I'd rather massage a porcupine." He paused. "I don't mind the R.E.M., though." He had recognized last night's track from _Document_ , a song that both made him thirsty for an orange soda and had reminded him of college.

Shawn's eyebrows went up and his eyes widened as he took the iPod and realized that it had a full charge again. He looked up quizzically and Lassiter nudged the charger as an explanation; Shawn picked it up and examined it, and when he glanced up again the question on his face was clear.

Lassiter shrugged. "I went to the library for some maps and met a man who was interested in a trade," he said casually, not knowing for sure if Shawn had noticed how alone they'd been and the implications it had brought. Now that he'd seen other living, breathing, _alive_ human beings, he felt better about their situation as a whole. "I wasn't sure it would work, but it seems to, so I guess it was worth it. Don't forget to put it in your pack when we go." He stood up and began sweeping the maps together. "Are you hungry? There are a few cans of propane along the wall over there, and there's a camp stove near the tent display—we could actually heat something up tonight."

He glanced up and saw Shawn's eyes flicking over him quickly before landing near his midsection; Shawn seemed to focus, and then he raised his eyes to Lassiter's while pointing at what was no longer there.

Lassiter hesitated, and then he shrugged again. "Guy wanted it for his kid," he said. "It's nothing. There's no law enforcement any more, so it doesn't have a use other than making a six-year-old forget real-life monsters for awhile." He gestured to the solar charger. "That has a use. So. Don't leave it behind when we move on, because I'm not coming back for it."

There was silence for a long moment while Lassiter straightened his pile of maps, making the corners uniform. He was about to ask Shawn if he wanted canned soup or Spaghetti-Os, but then Shawn came around the counter and stood directly in front of him. Lassiter looked at him and the question disappeared as he saw Shawn open his mouth, close it, struggle... and then open it again.

"Lassie," he whispered. Lassiter looked at him solemnly, watching him try—watching as the memory beat him and he fought to beat it back.

They were in the police department parking lot and zombies were everywhere; he had just pulled one off O'Hara and shot another when it reached for her, snatching his partner out of their grasp and falling to his knees. He held her and—and did what he had to do—and then he had heard Shawn scream, _"Jules!"_ and, _"No, Gus! Look out!"_ When he looked up, he saw a small crowd of zombies—four or five that had been shuffling behind Guster—suddenly take notice of Shawn's voice and turn. Then they were fast, _fast_ , they were all on Guster and driving him to the ground while his terrible screams made a counterpart to Shawn's. Lassiter had left Juliet behind and made a break for the other side of the lot, shooting the zombies that were tearing Gus apart and getting the last one just in time before Shawn plowed it aside and tried to drag his dead friend away. As Lassiter had grabbed him and pulled his fingers off Guster's bloody shirtsleeve, he realized that the whole street was quiet. Shawn had stopped screaming. It was the last sound he'd consciously made, not counting the times he'd cried in his sleep.

Until now.

"Lassie," he said again, his voice a little louder now but still not strong. "Thank you."

Lassiter just looked at him for a moment, trying out different responses and discarding them all. After what they'd been through, there was no room for gratitude—it was survival. They were surviving together, and the little things and the big things meant the same. He shrugged again. "It's no big deal," he said. Shawn nodded, clearly disagreeing and meaning that it was. "Look," Lassiter said. He realized how close Shawn was standing to him and he pressed his lips together briefly before trying again. "It's fine. I—what, then?"

"Thank you," Shawn said, his voice quiet but his gaze steady as he looked up into Lassiter's eyes. "For helping me... feel alive again."

"Oh," Lassiter said softly. He seemed to be unable to break their contact and didn't want to. He just stood there and looked at Shawn, at the circles under his eyes that weren't as dark as they were a couple of weeks ago, at the specks of color down deep in his irises, which weren't like any other eyes he could remember. His pupils were very big, and the instant after Lassiter thought that they were growing, he understood that it was because Shawn was moving closer to him, rising up on his toes.

Shawn kissed him. It was warm and wet and like sinking into a deep, soft bed after a long, hard day; like finding home after being lost. It was like old aches were soothed and new ones, better ones, stood in front of the line. There was only one priority now, only one thing that mattered above all. Shawn.

Lassiter stepped back suddenly, feeling shocked and a little shaky, unsure what exactly was happening. Part of him wanted to be angry and indignant, to make one hundred percent sure that Spencer knew he didn't have to be _grateful_ like _that_ for something so absurdly insignificant as a charger for his ridiculous mp3 player. As if he needed to next play _It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)_ because irony was on the menu and they were starving. Part of him wanted to demand to know what that was about, to force Shawn to explain what the hell _he_ was thinking so that Lassiter could narrow down his options or possible courses of action based on his answer. And then there was the part that wanted to do it again, to kiss him because he was alive and he tasted like hope.

"Shawn," he said, and now his voice was barely more than a whisper. Shawn just continued to look up at him intently, not seeming to breathe, his lips slightly parted. They couldn't do this. Maybe it was the end of the world, but that didn't mean he could kiss Shawn Spencer, hold him, touch him.

But... _why_ couldn't he?

Shawn raised his eyebrows then, his eyes moving just a little as they searched Lassiter's face. "Lassie?" he said again. He raised a hand and laid it on Lassiter's chest, over his heart, and then he closed the last bit of space between them.

When they were pressed together, Lassiter realized that Shawn was serious and that his own body knew more about what he wanted than his mind had been ready to acknowledge. He let out one slow breath to steady himself, and then he wrapped one arm around Shawn's back and used his other hand to gently trace the line of his jaw, tipping his face up.

"Okay," Lassiter said, and kissed him.

.

On a pile of blankets in the back room, Shawn laid on his back while Lassiter planted both hands on either side of his shoulders, kissing him and grinding his hard cock against Shawn's. They were both still dressed but that wasn't likely to last as Shawn ran his hands under Lassiter's shirt and then along the waistband of his trousers. Lassiter pulled back slightly in surprise when Shawn popped open the button and zipper, so he was looking down at Shawn's face when Shawn pulled his cock out of his shorts and rubbed the head before sliding his hand up and down.

It had been a long time since he'd been touched, and he couldn't help moaning softly before plunging his tongue into Shawn's mouth again. It was exhilarating—although he'd considered the idea years ago and decided it would be an option, he'd never been with another man before. It was familiar, though—the intimacy making it whole instead of overwhelming.

"Shawn," Lassiter moaned, thrusting his cock into Shawn's hand. Shawn took his hand off of it for a few seconds while he shoved his own pants down, and then he took both of their dicks in his hand and rubbed them together. It felt better than anything Lassiter could remember. He braced himself up on his hands and kissed Shawn again while he jerked them both, starting with long, slow pulls and squeezes that held them together before his pace quickened and started to shake them apart.

When Lassiter felt his orgasm coming, he couldn't help starting to thrust again, thinking that it would be amazing to make love to Shawn, to be inside him while holding him close, to kiss him when he came. "Shawn," he panted. "It's all going to be okay, Shawn. I promise."

"I know," Shawn said, smiling with his mouth open as his own breath came faster. "I'm with you."

.

Lassiter woke up the next morning when Shawn eased himself back down on the blankets and curled up in his arms. He started to sit up quickly but Shawn held on to him, pushing him back until he relaxed and pulled him closer. "Report," he murmured.

He felt Shawn smile against his neck. "One deadie Freddie down the block, but it otherwise seems quiet. Are we continuing our West Coast Shuffle today?"

"Yeah." Lassiter stretched and did sit up then. He almost barreled ahead with his decision regarding where they were going, but just after he opened his mouth he realized that it wasn't exactly his decision alone, that Shawn didn't have to just follow him silently any more. "I had a few ideas," he said. "About where we could go. Maybe not for good, but for awhile. It should be isolated and safe, and we'll be able to get our bearings and live in peace for awhile. Hunting, a little fishing. I can teach you."

"The Central Coast Mountain Range?" At Lassiter's surprised look, Shawn shrugged. "I saw the books on survival in the woods you brought back yesterday, along with your routes on the maps. Sounds good to me."

"You saw them for thirty seconds and you weren't even looking."

Shawn smiled. "I'm full of surprises, Lass. Just wait."

Lassiter slowly grinned back, and then he rolled on top of Shawn again and kissed him. "No," he said. "We may have all the time in the world now, we may not. But each day we're alive should be spent living, and I refuse to wait to spend it with you."

"That was so corny," Shawn breathed, but the shine in his eyes told the truth.

Instead of telling him to shut up—he had, after all, endured far too much of Shawn's unnatural silence in the last weeks—Lassiter kissed him again, held on to him, and counted the first day of the rest of their lives together.


End file.
